Sick and Tired
by Anti-Mattering
Summary: Jotaro's wife can't handle his neglect any longer. One-shot sequel to In Our Lifetime?


Seven-year-old Joylne Cujoh was in a bad spot. Her temperature was well over 100 degrees and she hadn't been able to go to school for the past three days. Food came back up almost immediately and she was having trouble swallowing even water. Things weren't looking good.

As her mother fruitlessly rubber her back during another coughing fit, she started to consider taking her to the hospital if things didn't improve soon. In addition to that, she also thought about her husband, "too busy" to come home and see their daughter or even talk to her on the phone no matter how sick she got or how much she asked for him.

Once Jolyne quieted down, she pulled the covers up around her neck. "If I make some soup, will you try to eat it? Just drink the broth at least?" After a few seconds pause, she slowly nodded her head. "Okay. I'll be in the next room."

Giving her a kiss on the forehead, she left for the kitchen. Opening up a can of chicken soup, she emptied it out into a saucepan, swishing the bottom with a little water to hopefully dilute things a bit more for Jolyne. Stirring things around as the burner got hot, she could hear her begin to cough again.

She bit her bottom lip to try and keep herself composed. She'd never seen her daughter so sick before and there didn't seem to be any sign she was improving. It was a terrifying situation for any parent to be in made all the worse by the fact her husband simply wouldn't do anything to help it.

Minutes passed, the soup only lukewarm. Impatiently, she turned the burner up as high as it would go, stirring things around again and pacing back and forth. Peeing out the window, her eyes scanned the outside, trying to take her mind off her worries by examining the fresh buds on the cherry tree planted near the center of the yard. Beyond that was the street and another row of houses. After that was a small cliff, then the beach, then the ocean.

Things had changed so much in only a few years. She remembered all the times the three of them would go to that beach and spend the day playing in the water, her husband trying in vain teach their toddler about different types of sea creatures when all she wanted to do was play in the surf, the sandcastles they made, how proud they both felt watching Jolyne learn to swim almost as naturally as she learned to walk.

Jotaro had treated them both so well back then, but things had changed. In only a few years, he'd become more distant with the both of them. His work had always kept him traveling, but at least before he'd do his best to make time for them. Now it was chore to even get him to speak to them on the rare occasion he was at home.

Snapping back to reality just as the soup began to boil over, she deftly removed it from the heat and set it aside on the stove to cool down some. She'd been too distract to stop it before then, something that made her feel inexplicably angry with herself. She wasn't foolish, of course; she realized immediately that anger was directed at her husband, just misplaced.

As Jolyne started to cough again, she clenched her fists. Walking to the landline against the wall, she stared at it furiously. He'd told her not to call her unless it was an emergency, but he always said that. She'd called him yesterday, but all he said was that he was busy and couldn't be preoccupied with this, saying without even any details that he was sure she'd be fine.

That was what decided it. Grabbing the phone, she dialed his cellphone number, waiting as it slowly rung over and over. Amazingly, he actually did pick up, the first words out of Jotaro's mouth being, "I don't have time to talk right now."

"Yeah? Well you're going to have to make time." She wasn't going to let him blow her off this time. "Jolyne is really sick. I don't know what to do and you won't help me."

"If you're worried, take her to the hospital," he said plainly.

"Is that all you have to say?" she asked, almost in disbelief.

"What should I say?" She went silent. "Are you finished talking? I can't stay on the call if you're not going to talk."

"What happened to you?" was all she could say. "Why...what happened to you?"

"I'm fine. What do you mean by that?"

She had to set the phone down for a minute and hold her head in her hands, using every ounce of willpower she had to keep herself from screaming. After composing herself, she grabbed the phone again and told him, "You're not...I don't know what happened to you. Why won't you talk to me anymore? Why don't you seem to care about me or your daughter? You hardly even come home anymore, and when you do, it doesn't even seem like you want to be here."

"Of course I do," he said, his voice finally breaking from its previously monotone and sounding almost confused by this accusation.

"You have a hell of a way of showing it, then. You come home and you immediately lock yourself in your study. You don't even come out to eat with us most of the time."

"My work keeps me busy," he said like he was telling it to a child.

"Yeah, I'm sure you're real busy right now. Are you afraid the fish are all going to leave if you take a few minutes off to talk to your sick daughter? I'm not even asking you to jump on a flight back from Japan, just talk to her."

He went quiet, eventually saying in a low and almost apologetic tone, "I can't right now."

"Of course you can't," she said, not at all surprised by his refusal. "Do you even care about us anymore or are we just a distraction?"

"I do," he told her, instinctively retreating back into his shell to hide the pain he was feeling.

"I just don't know if I can believe that anymore." She cleared her throat, rubbing her sleeve at the corners of her eyes. "I know you're not telling me the truth. You're not on a work trip right now; I figured out that was a lie a while ago, but I never said anything. I don't know if you're having an affair or some kind of...drug dealer or something, but I know you're not at work right now. And I know I said I would deal with the secrets you keep, but I just can't anymore. I thought I could, but I can't anymore. I guess that makes me an idiot for thinking I could, but I just can't."

Clearing her throat again to keep herself from letting on that she'd begun to cry, she gave him one last chance. "All I want from you is to tell me where you are and what you're doing. If you do that, I can keep doing this. I won't ask you to come home or talk to your daughter or do anything you don't want, but I need to know the truth right now. I want to trust you, I really do. I want to believe that you still love me. But if all you're going to do is lie and keep secrets and never communicate to me..."

Keeping his voice steady, Jotaro tried to think of what he could do. "Bianca..." In the end, he simply couldn't. "I have to get back to work. I'll be home soon and we can-"

"Maybe it's...it's better if you just don't come home." Hanging up the phone, she pressed her forehead against the wall, covering her mouth with her hand to keep herself from making any noise as she sobbed. Taking a few minutes to process what she'd just done and eventually compose herself, she cleaned up her face and brought her daughter her soup.

Half the world away, Jotaro stared blankly at the phone in his hand. Seemingly forgetting the world around him, he snapped back to reality almost a full ten minutes later, noticing the plastic edge of his mobile was beginning to crack from his grip. This became a secondary concern after he turned to find his hotel room in shambles, his Stand seemingly having broken everything it possibly could as he desperately tried to repress his feelings.

He knew he had absolutely no reason to be upset. His wife was correct in saying he wasn't really on a trip for work – not as a biologist, at least. He'd been summoned yet again by the Speedwagon Foundation to deal with a particularly problematic Stand user who'd shown up in Osaka. Apparently, this guy had been using his abilities to make a name for himself in the underworld, so if someone didn't step in soon, there might be a full-scale gang war across the prefecture.

The police had no way of contending with someone like this and letting things sort themselves out was a bad decision all around, so Jotaro was their only real option. Preparing to leave to finish this job, the Stand user would hopefully surrender without much of a fight. For his own sake, at least, as Jotaro wasn't feeling particularly merciful right now.

* * *

Here comes Jotaro being a bad father and husband.

I've wanted to do this since I ended the original story. I thought about maybe including some other, happier things in between, but I like the impact of that uplifting ending followed by the equivalent of, "But nobody came," followed by this. Just really pulverize anyone who's emotionally invested in this couple.

Spoiler alert, but Jolyne gets better. Also, her parents get a divorce because her father's obsessive need to "protect" the two of them by keeping them entirely in the dark about Stands and his work while wearing himself out physically and emotionally to the point of inadvertently alienating them and making them feel extremely unwanted and unloved despite how much he cares for both of them.

Like last time, this isn't the end for the character of Bianca. I have her set to appear in a few other things at least. Maybe some stuff in between this and the other thing, even. We'll have to see.

Thanks for reading. Share if you enjoyed. Always remember to tell the people you cherish that you love them or you might find out you don't have the chance to do so anymore.


End file.
